Improvement in corn-planters



).THoMsoN.

Corn-Planter.

` No. 129,624, -Patntzedluly 16,1872.

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'NITED STATES PATENT @ETEOE JOHN THOMSON, OE ALEDO, 1LLINOIS, ASSIGNOE OE ONE-HALE or His EIGHT To S: w. MCOOY AND J. M. OLOKEY, OE SAME PLAOE.

IMPROVEMENT IN CORN-PLANTERS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 129,624, dated July 16, 18.72.

Specification describing certain Improvements in Corn-Planters, invented by JOHN THOMSON, of Aledo, county of Mercer and State of Illinois.

The nature of my invention relates to improvements in that class of corn-planters known as automatic droppers or check-row planters; the object of which is to regulate and control the distance between the hills of corn, so that they may be in line for cultivation across the line of progression of the machine in planting; and the invention consists in an arrangement of the droppers, devices for operatin g, and in the arrangement of guides or witnesses on the pulleys, by which the operator may see where the hills are being placed, all as hereinafter fully described.

Description of the Accompanying Drawing.

Figure lis a top plan or view of a machine embodying my invention. Fig. 2 is a side elevation of Fig. 1. Figs. 3 and 4 are detail views.

General Description.

Letters A represent the main frame of an ordinary corn-planting machine, carrying the usual drivers seat B, and supported on wheels C C, which may have plain or grooved peripheries, as desired. Letters D represent the runners of an ordinary planter, pivoted at d to the main frame A to allow vertical oscillation,

and carrying the usual seed-boxes E E, draftpole G, and transverse connecting-bars H H, besides other devices hereinafter recited. I I are standards attached to and extending upward from the seed-boxes E E. J is a shaft extending across the machine immediately over the valves e e in the seed-boxes E E, and is provided with suitable bearings in the standards I I, allowing it free rotation. K is a sleeve sliding freely on the shaft J, on which it may be held at any desired position by a setscrew, k. L L are lugs or projections from opposite sides of the sleeve K. M M are T- shaped tappets, their Shanks threaded and passed, through the lugs I I, where they are adjustably secured by two taps or nuts, m m, on each shank, one on each side of the lug M, through which said shank passes. The tappet-end or head-end of the tappets M are arranged in a diagonal position to the plane of rotation of the shaft J and their Shanks, as shown in the drawing. N is the ordinary connecting-bar between the valves e e, a recipro eating longitudinal movement of which in either direction will open both valves. P, (see Fig. 3,) is a tappet-pin, projecting upward from near the center of the connecting-bar N.

From an inspection of Figs. 3 and 4 it will be evident that in rotating the shaft J the tappets M M will strike the pin P alternately, the one driving it, and with it the connecting-bar N, to the right, and the other to the left, thus giving the bar N a movement to the right and one to the left for every revolution of the shaft J, and thereby operating the droppers twice for every revolution of said shaft J. At Fig. 3, which is a view from the front of the machine of the tappets M, sleeve K, and a portion of shaft J, connecting-bar N, and bar H', the tappet, which is inclined so as to drive the connecting-barN in the direction of the arrow, is shown as having nearly passed the pin I?, and by its contact therewith driven the bar N to near its limit of movement in that direction. Fig. 4 is a transverse sectional view of Fig. 3 on the plane of the line a: x, and shows the different parts in the same relative position to each other as Fig. 3.

R R are pulleys, one on each end of the shaft J, with grooved peripheries, and each one provided with two guides or indicators, S S, adjustably attached thereto by screws s s, working in slots s s in the guides. The guides point in opposite directions radially from the center of the pulleys, as shown at Fig. 2, and their Outer ends project beyond the outer edge f of the pulleys and are turned out slightly. These indicators S S stand in the same radial plane from the shaft J as the Shanks of the tappets M M; consequently one of them is always toward and makin gan ind ent in the soil with its projecting end, and the other always at the highest point of the pulley and in view of the driver at the moment that the machine has dropped a hill of seed. T T are arms eX.- tending outward from the cross-bar H, and each carrying two pulleys, U U U U. W is a cord of any suitable material.

The operation of my invention further than -already herein described, is asffollows: The

- cord W being first drawn across the iield and its ends made fast, it is then placed across the forward end of the machine, and over two of the pulleys U U', as shown plainly at Fig. 1; thence around one of the pulleys R in the direction shown by the consecutively-numbered arrows at Fig. 2. It will now be seen that in advancing the machine forward, the cord will rotate the pulleyR and operate the droppers twice to each revolution of the pulley, and that when, from expansion or contraction of the cord W, or from any other cause, the hills are not dropped exactly in line crosswise with the line of progression of the machine, the driver may stop the draft-animals and turn the pulley within the cord until the indicators S S, which have shown the error, indicate the correction by pointing or standing in a vertical position opposite to' the mark made by a projecting end of one in the last rows planted. With this arrangement it will be seen that cor- Claims.

1. The tappets M M, combinedand arranged to operatewith the shaft J, pulleys R R, cord W, pin P, bar N, and droppers e e, substantially as described, and for the purpose set forth.

J, tappets M M, pin P, and bar N, when arranged to operate substantially as described, and for the purpose specified.

JOHN THOMSON.

Witnesses:

PLATT R. RICHARDS, DANL. BENNETT.

2. The fenders Z, pulleys U, U', and R, shaft 

